


Nothing in Life is Free

by OTD



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Bad Decisions, Dubious Consent, Other, Self-Esteem Issues, Slurs, Statutory Rape
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-14
Updated: 2017-12-14
Packaged: 2019-02-14 12:59:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13008300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OTD/pseuds/OTD
Summary: Billy needs to do something about his grades if he wants to graduate. His solution is creative, to say the least.





	Nothing in Life is Free

**Author's Note:**

> SPOILERS/Tw: in regards to the **dubious consent tag** it's because Billy is a minor (17) and he's kind of trading sex in exchange for good grades, it's not explicit and really only happens once but better safe than sorry.

Billy chews his pencil and stares at the clock, five more minutes and he’s free. 

The girl sitting in the chair in front of him turns to face him, and with wide eyes, she whispers, “Cut it out, you’re driving me insane.” 

Apparently, he had been tapping his foot against the floor. He licks the pencil suggestively and makes sure to be noisier as he taps his foot, the girl (Wheeler?) rolls her eyes and turns to face the teacher. Stupid cow. A paper lands on his desk, it was the test they did last week, oops. 

“Talk to me after class, Mr. Hargrove.” 

_Jesus fucking Christ._

The teacher dismisses the class and everyone leaves except him, go figure. He picks up his bag from the floor and drags his feet until he’s standing in front of the teacher’s desk.

Mrs. Rivera lowers her glasses and looks up to him, “I’m very concern with your grades Mr. Hargrove, graduation is coming and if you don’t improve your grades I’m afraid you’ll fail.”

He’s so fucked. Neil is going to murder him. 

“Yeah whatever,” Billy mumbles. 

Her face hardens, “If you don’t take this seriously you leave me no other choice than to call your parents.”

“No!” Billy shouts, startling Mrs. Rivera, “that won’t be necessary Mrs. Rivera; I’ll work hard and get my grades up.” 

Mrs. Rivera examines his face for a minute and then says, “See that you do.” 

The bell rings, shrill and rattling, effectively ending their conversation. The sounds of locker doors slamming and sneakers squeaking over the floor fill the hall outside of the classroom as teens rush out of school. Billy makes his way to the parking lot feeling frustrated. At least he doesn’t have to wait for Maxine because she has AV club and it’s allowed to skate alone to their house on those days. 

The sight of his Camaro calms him somewhat but when he closes the door and turns up the music the frustration becomes anger and the warm feeling in his chest spreads everywhere as he drives away. A car honks as he abruptly turns left; he opens the window and gives the finger to the middle age man driving the BMW, fucking rich asshole. Fucking rich asshole, that has the same car that Harrington. Fuck Steve Harrington, surely that shithead had perfect grades and didn’t have a dad that would kill him if he ends up in summer school. Fuck his teacher. Fuck the school. Fuck his dad. Fuck this shithole of a town.

“Fuck it,” Billy murmurs as he drives faster, hands shaking on the steering wheel, “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” By the end of his rant, he was screaming over the loud music. 

Fucking talking to himself, fantastic.

Billy parks the blue car in front of his house and goes straight to his room. He tries and fails to do his Math homework and on top of that finds a wrinkled Chemistry test with ‘D’ on it at the bottom of his backpack, just what he needs.

He misses dinner but doubts anyone will give a crap. Maybe his dad will grumble about ungratefulness but that’s about it. No one would really _care_. Billy attempts to list everyone that might care about him. He comes up with nothing. His mom used to care, and he had friends when he was younger but right now he can’t think of anyone who cares. 

The only people that had been nice to him in this shit of a town are the girls at his school that want to bone him, Tommy and Carol that use him for popularity and Mrs. Wheeler who fits in the ‘want to bone’ category. People are nice to him because he has something to offer, whether it’s his body or his popularity. It’s a little sad but that’s life.

He has to accept he’s no good for anything else, he just knows how to fuck and how to fuck up. 

Well, he can’t fuck up his grades so he might as well fuck _for_ his grades. Really he doesn’t even think that most of his teacher will actually sleep with him, but a flirty smile and the suggestion of more can get him very far. Satisfied with his plan, Billy goes to bed. 

Tomorrow everything will turn up alright. 

Billy wakes up the next morning with outfit ideas in his head. What he wears is essential; he has to look the part if he wants his plan to work. This means the tightest pair of jeans he owns, a red shirt left mostly unbuttoned to show off his body, a leather jacket, his combat boots and his favorite silver earring. He also spends more than the usual amount fixing his hair in the mirror.

He can feel the effect this particular outfit has on the student body when he walks into the school. Girls whisper when they see him and don’t bother to hide the way they trace his body with their eyes. He winks at a group of freshmen girls and they squeal and turn away giggling. By the time he has to try his charm with the teachers Billy is surprised to find he’s a little nervous. He enters the classroom a few minutes earlier than usual and makes sure he takes a sit on the front so that Ms. Davis can look at him. 

She’s about the same age as Mrs. Wheeler so he treats her the same way. He manages to catch her eye a couple of times throughout the class and smile, even once dropping a wink. When the bell rings she’s flustered and can’t take her eyes off him when he walks to her desk and asks her about the homework that is due tomorrow. She explains to him what he doesn’t understand and for once her voice isn’t frustrated when talking to him. He doesn’t even care that she writes her personal phone number in his notebook so that he can call her ‘in case he has more questions’. 

He’s a _genius_. 

He acts the same way in all of his classes. He smiles, flirts, stretches to show off his body and he briefly touches their arms. And it fucking works. For the first time ever he’s not scared to ask questions in class because the teachers pay attention to him, they smile and explain things over and over again if he doesn’t understand and some of them hover over his desk in case he needs help. 

It works with all of his teachers no matter if they’re male or female, young or old, married or single. If he plays nice and offers his body they all treat him with kindness. Who knew that all he had to do to get people to care about him was give them bedroom eyes? 

He keeps up the flirting for the next two weeks and he’s slowly getting better grades. But that’s not the only thing that has changed, the touching has become more frequent and sometimes more sexual as the weeks go by and the teachers understand he’s offering them everything. They can look and they can touch all they want in exchange for their attention, patience, understanding and sometimes lenient grading. 

Mr. Wilson is the first to take it to the next level which surprises him. Billy had thought that a female teacher would’ve been the first one to dare because of the taboo surrounding same-sex sexual encounters. He had been extra careful with his male teachers to advertise he was available away from the student’s eyes and in the most non-aggressive way, so that they wouldn’t get offended in case they weren’t interested. 

So that’s why when Mr. Wilson told him to stay after class Billy was a bit worried that he was going to get scold. Maybe sucking that pen in class was a bit too much and Mr. Wilson was going to lecture him about 'sinful' sexual acts and call his father. Thankfully (or not, depending on how you see it) his Chemistry teacher just wanted a practical demonstration of the skills he exhibited during class. He praises Billy during the encounter and it kills him a little how much it means to him to hear that he’s good at something. 

The students are also realizing what he’s up to, and it’s not good for his popularity. They whisper when he passes near them, calling him ‘desperate’, ‘slut’, ‘pathetic’, ‘disgusting’ and even though he has been careful about flirting with male teacher some have started to call him ‘queer’. 

He understands. Fucking the 40 something hot female teacher might have been perceived as an accomplishment but fucking the 60 something teacher with the bad breath that looks like everyone’s grandmother or the perverted male Science teacher is just pathetic. It’s weird. It’s everything but cool. 

Billy ignores all of them. He doesn’t need them. Friends are overrated and he can’t lose something that he never had. Also, he still excels at basketball and has big enough muscles that no one dares to say what they’re thinking to his face. Still, he can’t help but duck his head every time he manages to overhead the comments they make about him. 

Besides it’s not all bad, none of the teachers have taken it to Mr. Wilson level, and most of them won’t. They mostly just touch his arm, rub his back, some hug him and it’s kind of nice. When he uses Ms. Davis personal number to ask about school work the disappointment is clear in her voice but she helps him and doesn't push for more. 

Mrs. Rivera is a tricky teacher because she respects his new found enthusiasm and answers every question he asks, even offers to tutor him after class every Tuesday but when he tries to let her know he’s available she clams up. She never touches him, always mildly scolds him for any comment that she deems ‘inappropriate’ or ‘too personal’. 

At first, he’s thrown, he second guesses every interaction he has with her and feels guilty for asking too much of her attention when she’s not receiving anything in return. But when he skips tutoring she tells him off about it the next class and he feels even guiltier. So he goes to the tutoring and stops with the flirting, maybe she’s biding her time until he’s legal or he graduates. Billy can respect that. 

Funnily enough, the first person to approach him about it, the first one that dares to acknowledge what everyone’s thinking is Jonathan Byers. It happens a Tuesday after one of Mrs. Rivera tutoring and he’s exiting school when he notices that there’s a car parked next to his and someone is leaning against the unfamiliar car, whistling a song he doesn't recognize. Byers is such a weirdo, honestly.

“Billy, I’ve been meaning to talk to you,” Byers says eyes glue to the floor, “can you give me a minute of your time?” 

The request is so unusual and worded in such a polite way that Billy nods before realizing it. 

“I’ve observed you for a while and… you don’t have to do that,” Jonathan whispers.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Billy says with forced calmness, eyes darting around the parking lot to make sure they’re alone.

Jonathan raises his hands, “I’m not here to fight. I just don’t think it’s right and maybe you should talk to a teacher about it.”

Billy smirks, “Oh, I do my fair share of _talking_ to teachers.”

Jonathan winces at his remark, “not a teacher then, what about the school’s counselor?”

A month ago, Billy would have already punch Byers but the teachers all kind of like him so he doesn’t want to risk that by getting into a fight on school property. So he counts to ten in his head and exhales. 

“Why do you care?” Billy asks confused, “we’re not friends.”

“I know that and I don’t actually like you but no one should have to do _that_.” 

He can’t punch the kid but he sure as hell can shove him. If he wants to say something he shouldn’t pussyfoot around it. Byers stumbles but doesn’t fall.

“Do what Byers? What are you trying to say, huh?” 

Jonathan takes a deep breath before saying, “You don’t have to be a prostitute.” 

Billy’s cheeks redden and his stomach tightens with shame, he stammers, “It’s not like that, I’m not a prostitute.”

“I’ve seen how you act around teachers, I’ve seen you staying alone with them in the classroom, and I’ve observed how you let them touch you during class,” Jonathan says gently. 

The shame becomes anger (and doesn’t every emotion he has eventually become anger?) and he can feel his heart rate increasing and his muscles tensing. 

“I’m not a _whore_ ,” he spats the word and Jonathan flinches, “whore’s get paid.” 

“Billy…” Jonathan seems lost for words. 

He can’t deal with this bullshit any longer. Billy turns and opens the door of his car but a hand at his shoulder stops him.

“If you don’t stop touching me, I’m going to break every knuckle on your hand, all fifteen of them.” 

“A hand only has fourteen knuckles,” Byers says like the smartass little shit that he is. 

Billy throws the hand of his shoulder and turns around, picking Byers by his shirt and shoving him against his car, “You want to fucking die?”

Byers finally has the decency of looking frightened and shakes his head ‘no’. 

Billy gets inside his car and drives away, the sight of Jonathan Byers alone in the parking lot with his head down in defeat bothers him, he kind of wishes that Byers would have put more of a fight. But he pushes that thought away because he doesn’t need saving. Sure sometimes he wishes things were different but you have to offer something in order to get people to like you. And the only thing he can offer is his body because he’s no good at anything else.

Billy arrives at his house feeling empty and weird. He was waiting for someone to confront him about his recent behavior and maybe show him a better way. But the conversation with Byers only left him feeling small and ashamed… a fucking prostitute, that’s what Byers had called him. He empties his backpack on his bed and looks at all the ‘B’s’ and ‘C+’ he has gotten lately, they look blurry to him and it takes him a second to understand that it’s because his eyes are filling with tears. 

“Fuck,” Billy whispers and sweeps the papers of his bed. 

Sadness consumes him for a while and he lets himself cry. When the tears dry the sadness deserts him and a grim determination comes to take its place. 

He can’t care about what other people think of him. He can’t care about what he thinks about himself. His grades have improved, he’s going to graduate in two weeks and his dad it’s going to be proud of him. Or at least he isn’t going to be disappointed. Two more weeks of being a prostitute and then he can get his diploma and get out of this shithole. He has friends in Cali that would let him stay for free while he looks for a job.

And if they don’t want to help him, well now he knows what to do in order to convince them.

**Author's Note:**

> I would appreciate kudos, comments and/ or constructive criticism. 
> 
> I don't have a beta and English isn't my first language so if you see any mistakes feel free to point them out. 
> 
> Also, do you think that Billy is an unreliable narrator?


End file.
